Select area with white balance picker

Here's an improvement that would make it much easier to make accurate white balance picks:
A white balance picker that can sample an area of pixels.
This can be done in two ways:
1. Perhaps the simplest and most logical: Make the white balance into an area selector, like the mask tool in Photoshop. The pixels in the square are averaged and used to set the white balance. You could keep the one-click functionality as is.
2. Give the white balance tool an adjustable sample area. 1x1, 3x3, 9x9 for instance.
I've been trying to investigate if it is possible to get averaged WB values by picking from a very zoomed-out view of the image. It seems to work, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyone who can fill me in on this?

I see what you mean (I just tried it) - pretty clear whats going on there...
The way it is seems pretty good to me - as long as you are willing to use >1:1 zoom ratio for fine control, no?
i.e. its easy to pick exactly which pixel you want. Are there cases where you would want a pixel in-between? or would it just be a convenience (to use an averaged area) so you wouldn't have to choose amongst candidate pixels?
Just curious mostly...
Rob

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The panel with White Balance, contrast, exposure, whites, blacks, etc. has disappeared from my Develop screen

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This is what I'm working with now:

Right click 'Tone Curve' (the title/words) and enable 'Basic'.
Do you see it?

Can you select different areas for white balance?

LR3.4
I have a whole selection of photos that were taken at an event where there was 2 types of lighting, so the people in the back of the shots have a warm orangey glow and the people at the front have the day light. What would be ideal would be the option to adjust the white balance on 2 separate areas, but I can't seem to find this in Lightroom? is it possible or will I need to export 2 versions and merge in photoshop etc?

This is possible in Lightroom 4 by using the Paint with WB in the Adjustment Brush or the Graduated Filter tool.
In Lightroom 3, you can 'fake' it by painting with a bluish or orange tint at about 5-10% saturation of the color swatch. Matt Kloskowski had a video on it a couple of years ago. Not the best solution but yet another reason to upgrade (unless you are using XP)

Real Problems With White Balance Tool

I attempted to white balance an image I took using the White Balance eyedropper tool, and selecing an area on a Grey Balance Target. Well, Aperture is doing a horrible job of white balancing the image. With Aperture, I exported the image to Photoshop and white balanced it using levels.
You can see the side by side images here along with the corresponding RGB values. The image on the left, is the one that Aperture "thinks" is white balanced. Since there doesn't seem to be a way to check RGB values within Aperture I can't say what they really are, other than to use OS X's Digital Color Meter, which shows exactly what Photoshop is telling me...the image has a definite blue cast to it.
http://www.johnburdick.us/WhiteBalance.jpg
I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, or if Aperture's white balance function is not working as advertised..
Any suggestions? Has anyone else had these issues?
PowerMac G5 Dual 2.3 4.5Gb RAM Mac OS X (10.4.2)
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Apple are being deliberately deceptive on this issue.
I have been to a couple of demo's at their store and watched the demonstrator use the same wedding photo each time to highlight the power of the white balance eye-dropper. I think this is the only photo on the face of the earth to give a half-way decent result from the eye-dropper (and even then it's still a little blue).
When I cornered the demonstrator on this specific issue he tried to use another image (one of the Tibet portraits) and the results were horrible and he was forced to concede that this tool was lousy.
I simply don't believe the software developers weren't aware of the shortcomings of this and yet they still decided to release and insult their customers with it.
But this is a minor issue compared with the overall quality of the images coming out of the RAW adjustments.
I can't understand why photographers are still fighting to make this application work. Sure, as a image selection/management tool it's very nice but beyond that it's garbage.
I've returned my copy to the Apple Store where I purchased it and received a full refund thankfully.

Lightroom 4: Massive BUG with White Balance / Quick Develop. Totally Unreliable!

I just recently updated from LR3 and just now found a massive bug concerning the white balance adjustments in the quick develop module.
After a studio shooting and especially after weddings I use the "make warmer" adjustment in the quick develop panel to give all (a few thousand NEFs) a nicer look all at once.
The great thing about this is - like all quick developments - that it increases the color temperature relative to each image's starting white balance.
Yesterday I wanted to edit my first wedding in LR4 and like in LR3 applied one click "make warmer" to all images at once (previously WB was "as shot").
While I browsed through the images to rate them I noticed some of them were very "pinkish".
After closer inspection it came out that a lot of images (50%-60%) had the following custom WB set: 5316, Tint: +10.
It is always this exact combination no matter what the "as shot" WB was.
That setting of course applies way too much magenta to a lot of images.
After resetting the WB of single images to "as shot" and selecting "make warmer" once again the images look fine and get appropriate WB values.
But every time I select more than one image to apply "make warmer" a lot of them get the strange value of 5316 and +10.
Sometimes it's even just the first few images of the selection that get correct values and all the following ones get the off value. It appears to be totally random.
I tried completely resetting all images prior to "make warmer", setting them to different camera profiles first and even switched them to Process 2010 again. But absolutely no luck! :-(
The "make warmer" tool gives me totally unusable results.
I find it strange, that I couldn't find anything about that on the net.
PLEASE fix this ASAP.
To apply WB to thousands of images individually is a real pain.
I would be glad to support you fixing the issue.
My setup:
Nikon D700
Nikon D300s
(Both cameras affected, I only shoot NEF)
Win7 x64
LR4.1 as well as LR4.2 RC

@ssprengel
I get your point but that is exactly my problem.
Not only is there no pattern but also once I reset a file that got 5316+10 to "as shot" and select "make warmer" for it again it does get the correct value! As long as I select it as a single file without others.
So just to simplify my findings and explain what I have been doing all night:
- SELECT 5 files in Library View (all freshly imported, no settings altered, WB "as shot")
File 1: 5700 / -8
File 2: 5500 / -8
File 3: 5550 / -8
File 4: 5450 / -6
File 5: 5500 / -7
- CLICK "make warmer" once
Result:
File 1: 6089 / -8
File 2: 5867 / -8
File 3: 5316 / +10
File 4: 5316 / +10
File 5: 5316 / +10
1 and 2 are okay!
- SELECT 3-5
- RESET THEM
Result:
File 3: 5550 / -8
File 4: 5450 / -6
File 5: 5500 / -7
- CLICK "make warmer" again
Result:
File 3: 5316 / +10
File 4: 5812 / -6
File 5: 5867 / -7
File 4 and 5 are okay!
- SELECT File 3 again
- RESET IT
- CLICK "make warmer"
Result:
File 3: 5923 / -8
now File 3 is okay, too.
It is completely random!
But that is no way to work, of course.
I have two weddings from last week and am going nuts already.

Are there white balance presets - like in Camera Raw?

Hi. I'm newer to Aperture, and when I'm editing photos, I'm wondering if there's a white balance preset, like in Adobe Camera Raw, that match my camera's white balance options (cloudy, flash, daylight, etc.). Is there something like that in Aperture that I can't find, or am I just regulated to the sliders?
Thanks!

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Issues with White Balance and other camera setting...

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Help requested with White Balance

This may come as a surprise to many, but here I am requesting your help, instead of giving it.
I have filled out a feature request with the following content, already some time ago:
Would it not be nice to be able to extract the WB settings in K from the metadata and be able in post to change it to what you should have done during the shoot.
Say your WB is set to 5600 K, you can extract that from the metadata and with the White Balance effect you can enter a desired setting of say 6100 K. During the shoot you can do that with the Canon XF series, but if you have forgotten to use a warm card instead of the white balance card, this would be a great effect to have. Or in the situation where you simply want a shot to be slightly cooler or warmer, this would be a great feature.
Interface similar to the scale slider and fully keyframeable. The program monitor should reflect changes in color temperature immediately. Simple, easy to understand, like using a set of Warm Cards after the shoot.
Retrieval of the color temperatures should not be difficult. It is contained in the metadata:
It works both with AWB and manual for the XF series. If the camera does not record these data, the effect should be greyed out.
I request your help to get this feature implemented, since it is pretty simple to implement, is a great help to have when doing multicam work, to fine tune different cameras or to change the atmosphere of a shot. It is far easier than the color correction effects we already have.
If you agree with me, please fill out a similar feature request. The more requests made, the greater the chance of it being implemented.
See Feature Request Form

Harm, I've seen instances of multi-cam shoot cameras that were identical models, using a clone of the settings which still resulted in differences in color. I've seen this blamed on the chips and the chip manufacturing process. I've also seen multicam footage from analog cameras that were supposedly balanced before shooting that resulted in shifts. And then, you have a situation where the atmospherics can alter the color, such as when one camera is close to the action, and the distant camera is shooting through fog or haze that has light shooting through it.
So again, while you can get in the ballpark with certain regimes, when it comes time to finish, you have to trust your eyes.
So, for my situation, it's not something that rises to the level of something I'd use enough to warrant a feature request.
My biggest issue today is that I'd love to see Pr offering bottom-up rendering, the way Avid MC offers it with its Render All option vs. Smart Rendering, which is top down. I don't like that I have to re-render entire sequences just because I made a little change to an upper layer clip. That, to me, warrants a concerted campaign or pitchfork mob.
But, I'll make a pact with you. If you'll request bottom up rendering, I'll request WB metadata support, OK?

Since update to 3.5 issues with white balance

since update to Aperture 3.5 tonight the white balance in all of my pictures is completely wrong (way too cool with a greenish tint).
After setting the white balance with the eyedropper it reads on a Whibal grey card
R: 117
G: 188
B: 156
Any suggestions? Thanks a lot !

I cannot replicate this issue. Upon import of new images (RAW) I tested the White Correction using the eye dropper. No issue at all, despite reports here to the contrary.
In the previous round of this issue, it seems to have only impacted people who did not directly download new photos into Aperture, but rather were using some third party software to first do some processing of them.
The previous issue required some sort of fix not only from Apple, but also an update of the aforementioned third party software (Nik apps in that case.)
Ernie

I downloaded Lightroom 5 but tab with White Balance Dropper have disappeared?

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is there a simple solution in pse4 to correct my blue pics

If above suggestions do not work, try the following
Open picture file
Go to Enhance>Adjust color>Levels - not a levels adjustment layer
Access the white eye dropper and click on something that should be white.
One can also set the black and gray points

White Balance Selector Tool operation

The WB selector tool still appears as though it only selects one pixel in the the "Pick a Target Neutral" array display window, the one with the x over it (regardles of whether you scale the matrix to 16x16 or 5x5 with the scale slider. It does not appear to allow averaging of adjacent pixels to reduce the effect of random noisy pixels messing up the wb. This has already been brought up in previous threads and the LR team apparently dismisses the concern. Reminder to Adobe Labs: we don't all shoot with relatively noiseless Nikon D3/ D700s. Our cameras do produce significant color noise even at relatively low ISOs. So when we attempt to find a neutral patch or pick a spot on a neutral whibal card with the color picker tool, we see a random array of various shades of gray, some a little more purple, some a little more green in the tool's selection window. Depending on which pixel we place the X on, we get a different white balance. EVEN THOUGH WE ARE HOVERING OVER WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE AN EVENLY LIT NEUTRAL BALANCE CARD! Could you guys please talk with your Photoshop colleagues and figure out how to give us a 5x5 or NxN pixel averaging white balance picker. Or maybe you confirm that I am wrong and in fact this tool already DOES average all the pixels I see in the "Pick a Target Neutral" pixel array display? This would be far more useful an option than the ability to put a decorative flourish at the bottom of a menu panel! Thanks.

In addition to the point being made above in regards to a 3x3 or 5x5 pixel eye dropper for the selection of your color balance(color temperature), it would be great to have an eye dropper to select & set your black, white & mid grey(18%) point inside of lightroom to not only neutralize any color cast but also to set your tonal values with a x-rite color checker or similar reference.

Select area with white balance picker

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